Art in the Backyard

We noticed on Pinterest that pinecones can be turned into flowers! We thought this was a cool idea and we decided to try it. So off we went walking and gathering our supplies. We did need to make a pit stop at Michaels for some craft paint and now we have what we need.

Sometimes all you need is a spark of an idea. That described my granddaughter and I, we had a brilliant idea. We decided to make art from pieces that we found in the neighborhood. In her neighborhood there are a lot of pinecones, acorns, leaves and sticks. Surely we could make something creative with that. I know my granddaughter has a glue gun so anything is possible. We went hunting and gathering.

Painting and glueing was the fun and easy part. The challenge came when we started to cut the pinecones. We wanted to turn pinecones into flowers using only the bottom portion of the cone Has anyone ever tried to cut a pinecone? It isn’t too easy; in fact it’s almost impossible.

Here’s what we did and here’s what we learned: *craft scissors don’t work * mom’s scissors from the kitchen drawer doesn’t work and we knew we would be in BIG trouble if we used the sewing scissors* dad’s saw didn’t work but it did get the feeling you might actually be making progress-not *tried a saw with deep teeth which only scared us at the thought of losing a finger….*we then tried wire clippers which only cut the pinecone petals like toe nails which now were flying everywhere in the garage * finally we learned that clipping the petals and twisting the core with pliers finally got us a pinecone that looked like a flower!!!

We painted and glued and glued some more. In the end we liked what we created. Each backyard is full of possibilities so go and be creative. Make something that has never existed before and have fun.❤️